


the truth

by iffiness



Series: fem!Tony stuff [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Female Tony Stark, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Kidnapping, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Rule 63, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:53:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iffiness/pseuds/iffiness
Summary: What, was he insinuating this had happened before? She legitimately couldn’t remember. Her head felt awful. It was cluttered, foggy, slow. Intolerably slow. It was like trudging through mud up a huge inclined slope. It just wasn’t happening. She could hardly even recall how they’d gotten her to begin with, fresh out of a day of stressful meetings and already halfway to drunk. It had been laughably easy for them. She hadn’t really been concerned with her own safety when she decided to take her drunken pity party to the now abandoned Avengers Tower. Without Friday installed there, the building totally empty because it was up for sale, she’d literally been the golden goose ripe for the plucking. Whoops.





	the truth

**Author's Note:**

> just a thing i was writing and playing with before infinity war came out and ripped my soul from my body. didn't feel right to just let it lay to rot in my drafts, so enjoy what little of this that exists

Maybe, just maybe, she was running out of options.

  
And maybe,  _ maybe _ , she was also running on fumes. 

 

But what else did anyone expect? She was the last man standing, figuratively and literally. Rhodey was doing a lot better, but without her exoskeleton he’d be down for the count. Vision left to do a walkabout or soul searching or whatever the hell he’d called it. Pepper left her. Natasha was still on the run, probably hiding in plain sight somewhere under Toni’s nose, but she never bothered to look too hard for her. Spider-Man was finally, blessedly sticking to his roots and fighting muggers and helping little old ladies cross the street. And the rest of them?

  
In Wakanda. Absconding around the world doing little “stealth” missions. 

 

Not that Toni was supposed to know that. But she did. She knew as soon as Steve left her in the frigid cold of  Siberia in a dying suit that he would be going there, what he would start doing, and the rest of his ducklings would follow after him. They’d imprinted on him somewhere along the line, so it was only natural they’d chase along after him like good little soldiers. T’Challa was nice to her face, but he was too good at pretending he wasn’t harboring the ex-Avengers, and that didn’t sit well with her. 

  
So she was alone. Last man standing in a supercharged political battlefield. Toni Stark versus the world. In a sick sort of way, it just reminded her of how it used to be way before she’d ever met the others. Before she’d let them into her home, her heart, and become friends with them. She should’ve known then that betrayal was coming. Obie had betrayed her, ripped the heart literally out of her chest, and this? This felt  _ worse _ somehow. This felt like her entire soul was ripped out, shredded, and stuffed back into a suit of flesh too battered and bruised to ever heal. 

 

That’s the mentality that got her into her current pickle. After Peter’s debacle with Toomes she’d had to play some major cards, throw a ton of time and effort into PR and covering the entire situation with the thickest bandaid she could find. The world seemed torn on what to think of him; a vigilante protecting the property of a known  _ hero _ . 

 

God, what did  _ hero _ even mean anymore, really?

 

It certainly didn’t mean a thing to the asshats she had to spend her days arguing with. It didn’t mean anything to the media, those fickle hounds who leap at the faintest scent of blood and dig their claws into it greedily. Hero stories don’t sell papers anymore. They want bloodshed. They want tragedy. They want to see Toni fall apart, piece by piece, until nothing but a memory of her remains. Then they’ll put her up on the altar, shine that golden light on her, and call her a hero gone too soon. “The Golden Avenger”. That’s just how it works. Toni would be stupid to not understand that the world would celebrate her life only after she died. She’d already made a mental list of all the posthumous awards she’d be given. It was at least a dozen. 

 

None of that had anything to deal with the situation at hand though. Her mind just couldn’t sit still. It couldn’t keep any train of thought coherent long enough to make any headway. As soon as one came she was sure to have another come and wipe it all away.

 

She was drugged. She knew that much. Doesn’t change the fact she can’t metabolize it fast enough to make heads or tails of her situation. Another couple of hours maybe, but by then they’d already have come back and given her another dose of this fucked-juice. 

 

All in all, this was probably the worst day she’d had since Siberia. And that's saying something. She had two super soldiers beating the shit out of her in Siberia. This was practically child’s play compared to that. These guys didn’t even try to hit her. Just kept her nice and drugged and complacent.    
  
Which probably meant they wanted her to make them something?

 

Or to give them information. 

 

No, they probably wanted her to make them something. These types were all the same in the end. Toni had the schematics to bombs stowed away nice and pretty in her head, and they wanted to take her and pry them out so they could make things go boom. 

  
She’d never given in to demands like it before, but they kept trying. Fuck if she knew why. Idiots.

 

These guys were definitely a little different though. They weren’t  _ as _ harsh as the others had been over the years and many kidnappings she’d gone through. Overall, this was maybe fifteenth on the list of suck. And only there because she hated how muddy her brain felt. They’d roughed her up a little when they grabbed her, but somewhere in the initial haze she could recall gentler hands cleaning the blood of her face and bandaging the cut on her forehead, wrapping the wrist they’d sprained with care that was more than a little disconcerting for the situation. She really hoped they weren’t going to try to Stockholm her or something. It’d be different and make the whole thing more exciting, but it would be so  _ boring _ . 

 

Fuck, she’d have to start thinking of a way to get out of here soon. She didn’t have a calvary to rely on anymore.

 

Did she ever have that though? Or did she just think she had? They’d not shown up during that whole mess with Killian, so why would they have ever shown up to help her with something as mundane as being kidnapped? 

 

Self deprivation wasn’t gonna get her anywhere, but it was mostly by habit now. She’d spent most of the last two months beating herself down in one way or the other, burning her insides away with a copious amount of liquor all the while. Why not add more kindle to the fire while she was supposed to be figuring out her escape?

  
Escape. Right. That’s what she had been doing. 

 

She distantly felt her head jerk to the left, somewhere through the fog in her senses, and through an effort that felt more monumental than literally flying a nuke into space her eyes opened. And immediately closed again.  _ Fuck _ . It was too bright. Was she taken to the fucking sun? 

 

It took a couple of minutes, but she finally found it in herself to open her eyes again. Slower this time. Trying to acclimate her pupils to the sudden intake of light. It was much harder to do than she thought it would be, and it took several long blinks before she felt comfortable enough to squint. Squinting obscured her vision, but it still let her see enough of the room as she groggily flipped her head to the other side. She was vaguely aware she was strapped to a table. A very cold table. 

 

She hated the cold now. Siberia had done that to her.

 

Focus, Stark. 

 

She groaned, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the effort of moving her head or the frustration at her own wandering thoughts. She didn’t even feel strong enough to try tugging at her restraints to see if they’d give any. To figure out their weak parts so she could escape. It was taking all she had just to stay awake, for fuck’s sake. 

 

“It’s rather depressing seeing you like this, Ms. Stark.” 

 

The new voice came as a shock and her body responded in kind, jerking against the binds on her wrists and ankles harshly as she jolted into awareness. She couldn’t see the source of the voice anywhere, her eyes having blown open to look around the room. It was a very sterile looking place, all harsh whites and stainless steels. There was literally nothing else in it except for her and the fucking awful surgery light hanging over her face. There weren’t even any other sounds. If she could just get the cuffs off and reach up to it she was sure she could make something useful out of it.

 

“Where is that famous Stark wit?” the voice drawled out again, and Toni resigned herself to acknowledging that it had to be over some sort of intercom system. Or she was finally going insane. “Nothing charming to say? No one-liners? No genius plan to escape?”

 

“Go fuck yourself.” The raspy quality of her words, the harsh tone and the dryness that left her coughing surprised her. When would things stop surprising her?

 

“The usual, then.” The disembodied voice sounded  _ bored _ . It sounded so fucking nonplussed about the entire situation. “I was hoping that you’d eventually start to remember the other times, but apparently I was wrong about you. Genius intellect just isn’t the same as a super soldier’s brain after all. There’s nothing there making you immune to what I’m doing to you. I could fix that, you know. If you want.” 

 

What, was he insinuating this had happened before? She legitimately couldn’t remember. Her head felt awful. It was cluttered, foggy,  _ slow _ . Intolerably slow. It was like trudging through mud up a huge inclined slope. It just wasn’t happening. She could hardly even recall how they’d gotten her to begin with, fresh out of a day of stressful meetings and already halfway to drunk. It had been laughably easy for them. She hadn’t really been concerned with her own safety when she decided to take her drunken pity party to the now abandoned Avengers Tower. Without Friday installed there, the building totally empty because it was up for sale, she’d literally been the golden goose ripe for the plucking. Whoops. 

 

She pushed that thought quickly to the side as she registered movement on her left, her cement-filled head sluggishly rolling to try to see what was happening. The light above her ensured she had a constant spot in her vision that made it difficult to actually see anything around, but she’d recognize white lab coats anywhere. Scientists. Doctors? Well, either way, it was a new one. She’d have to hand it to Mr. Disembodied Voice. She’d not been experimented on before. 

 

A pinch in her arm had her jerking instinctually, though it did her no good. She was completely at their mercy here. She was very effectively strapped down. Her manacles around her limbs weren’t biting, they had a harsh leather rimming the inside that would definitely leave some good welts, but it wouldn’t do permanent damage. 

  
“So am I the unlucky participant of a bad snuff film, or what?” Whatever they’d injected her with helped her find her voice again. She still felt all swimmy, but talking didn’t seem like such a Titanic feat anymore. Mr. Disembodied Voice laughed at her words, and she felt a very grim sort of smug at that. At least she was funny when she was drugged and tied up. It’s the small victories, really. 

 

“Ms. Stark, you are the luckiest woman in the world,” he answered, and she winced at another small pinch in the crook of her arm. “You’re getting to test some of my newest creations. I assure you, they are the finest drugs to be manufactured to date. Now tell me, how do you feel?”

 

“Like Thor beat the shit out of me with his hammer.” Her response was immediate and surprised her (again, could the surprises just  _ stop _ for a few minutes?). She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. It was not in her gameplan to tell the guy torturing her how she really felt like this was some sort of dashboard confessional. 

 

“Ah, I see. My apologies. We’ll try to refine that aspect in later testing.” God, did her captor sound  _ sorry _ for her? Could today get any weirder? “Ms. Stark, I have a series of questions to ask you. You’re going to answer them truthfully.”

 

“Like hell,” she bit out, but she could feel her resolve starting to waver. A gnawing pit had opened in her stomach as her thoughts became more and more cohesive, leading her down the path to rational thinking. 

 

“I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter.” 

 

The reply was succinct, but it answered the thought she’d yet to voice. Truth serum. Had to be. She’d heard of it before, a ton of people had tried creating and perfecting shit like it over the years, but she’d not heard of anyone actually getting somewhere with it. It was just her luck to find herself in the clutches of the one asshole who did. 

 

“First question. When were you born?”

 

“May 29th, 1970.” Her response was almost immediate and she  _ hated _ herself for it. The question was purposefully easy. Something to just test and see if she’d reply appropriately. She needed to figure out a way around this. 

 

“Good. When did you become Iron Man?”

 

“Sometime in May, I think. 2009.” Shit. The answers were just tumbling out of her lips like she was some loose lipped idiot. At least it was still just generic shit. Things anyone could know. 

 

“Correct yet again, Ms. Stark.” The tone was ever so slightly condescending, and definitely full of itself. She hated it. “Have you been in contact with Captain Steve Rogers?”

 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This was an important question. The easy round was over. She could  _ not _ tell them the real answer to this. Because yeah. She’s been in contact. They’d hardly been out of contact. It took two weeks for him to write her an apology letter and send an offensively archaic burner phone. Two more weeks before she’d broken herself down so thoroughly in a drunken stupor and texted the only number in the stupid thing. And he’d texted her back. Like a fucking idiot. Which also meant she was an idiot. Because she texted him back after that too. And that’s what they’d been doing for four months now. Texting, because calling was too risky and they both agreed it should be for emergencies. Texting their troubles to each other, ranting, trying to mend the rift between them through words, even though they both  _ sucked _ at it. They were super fucked up. 

 

A sudden realization hit her as she pushed her diatribe aside. She sucked at words  _ that meant something _ . Words that meant nothing though? She could do that all day, she could talk circles around anyone. She’d spent the last few months in the company of politicians and world leaders. 

 

“Define contact.” She managed to grunt it out stubbornly, her body and mind both betraying her and wanting to just scream the truth. She could assume what contact meant all day, but it was a vague word. It could mean literal physical contact, or actual out loud talking… anything that wasn’t just texting. 

 

“Don’t try to play games with me. Have you seen Captain America? Have you spoken to him?” 

 

Oh, god. This was her out. If she could just keep control of the questions like this, make him define everything out to her in ways she could manipulate, then maybe she could do this. Because really, she hadn’t been  _ speaking  _ to him. She’d been typing. “No. I haven’t seen Captain America. I haven’t spoken to him.” She could feel the anger from where she laid prone on the stupidly frigid table. It was not the answer Mr. Disembodied Voice wanted to hear, but it was the one he got. And if he trusted this serum as much as he seemed to? He’d accept that as the truth. 

 

“Where is Steve Rogers?” 

 

“Who the fuck cares?” It was stupidly mean to say, but it was true. She didn’t  _ care _ where he was, so long as it was away from her and away from any authorities that wanted his head on a pike. So long as he was somewhere safe. God, who was this guy? Some sort of crazed stalker, lusting after that spangled ass? 

 

“Where. Is. Steve Rogers?” The question came out very angrily this time. It made Toni grin. 

 

“Who. The fuck. Cares. Your truth shit doesn’t work so well when I couldn’t give two shits about where he is, does it?” 

 

“There’s that charming personality I’ve heard so much about.” 

 

She’d not been prepared for the electricity to surge through her body. She convulsed on the table, her head smacking against the table harshly as the fiery hell raged beneath her skin. It was over within the minute, but it felt like it was years of agony. She had no idea how she’d missed the collar around her neck before. No. She did. She couldn’t feel it anymore. This had happened before, because her neck had been numb and the currents running through it again had reawoken that burning pain. Her tongue felt stupidly heavy in her mouth and she groaned, feeling each set of muscles slowly relaxing back onto the table as she rode out the aftermath of the shocks. It felt fucking horrible. No wonder her entire being felt like mush. 

 

“I’ll ask once again. Where is Steve Rogers?”

 

She swallowed harshly as she considered her next reply. She knew where he  _ was _ , when they’d first nabbed her. She’d been texting him, for fuck’s sake, when the alarms to the building started blasting that there’d been a breach. She’d managed to hide the phone behind a wall panel, because of course she had. When had Toni ever decided to do something to protect herself for a change? Bad guys breaking into your tower where you’re alone, without an AI, and without a suit? Better hide the one way ticket to finding the fugitive Captain America! Don’t worry about calling in your armor! Just hide the phone and hope they don’t find it!

 

God. She’s such an idiot. 

 

“I don’t know,” she finally answered, once she felt sure enough that her voice wouldn’t quiver with the effort. “He could be anywhere. There are a hundred countries that don’t have enough tech for me to hack into and run my facial recognition program. He could be in any of them.”  Still not a lie. He’d been in Wakanda again last they spoke. She  _ could _ feasibly hack their shit, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t need to. Before that though? He’d been abroad, doing some shady shit like he had been for the last few months. She’d not been able to track him. 

 

“So you have tried to track him then?” Why did that voice sound  _ proud _ ? God. This entire situation was so fucked. 

 

“Yes.” Single word answers were good. They didn’t give away too much. Toni only wished the other questions could be this easy. 

 

“And what about the Black Widow? Do you know where she is?”

 

“With Steve.” Toni grimaced at that. She’d not wanted to say that. She wasn’t even supposed to know that Natasha was helping Steve out with whatever mission it was he was doing that day. She’d stumbled across it purely by chance. She had no idea what to make of it at the time, but now she hated herself for being so damned curious. It was her favorite pastime when she wasn’t piss drunk or in meetings: stalking her old teammates. Partially to keep an eye on them, to make sure they were okay, but also because she was fucked up. She was punishing herself. Not that she’d ever claimed to be healthy to begin with, but it was a whole new low for her to hit. “But probably not all the time? She’s the Black Widow. For all we know she’s in the room with us right now. She’s that good. Hey, since your questions are a bunch of dead ends let me ask the questions now. Where the fuck am I? How long have I been here?”

 

Toni practically saw the shock coming from a mile away. She’d asked for it, in a way. Practically begged the guy to hit the button again. It was the only way she could think of to take the questioning off her friends. Ex-friends? Whatever. It got the light off them. 

 

“I told you not to play games with me, Toni. You should’ve listened.” 

 

_ Fuck you _ is what she wanted to say, but somewhere between her labored breathing and the thought itself came another series of shocks. The increased frequency alone would’ve been enough, but no. The asshole had to up the voltage while he was at it. She was sure this time wasn’t going to end as quickly as the last.

 

It took her a lot longer to come down off of it this time. The entire world had blurred out to a faint fuzz. Her eyes had lost the battle to stay open a long time ago so she had to rely on what she heard, which wasn’t very much over the ringing in her ears. Her body felt floaty, the nerve endings twitchy and over stimulated from the electricity that had surged through her, but it was strangely relaxing to just… lay there and float, not quite conscious but not unconscious either. Just pleasantly in between. The longer she stayed like this the longer she could avoid the questions too. It was a win/win situation. She could go on feeling nothing in the weird grayness, and her ex-friends could stay safe. What more could she ask for, really? 

 

All good things must come to an end though, as they say. 

 

Sounds were starting to filter back into her one by one. It was less stream of consciousness and more intelligible noise, her thoughts slotting back into place like RAM sticks into the motherboard. Part of her hated it, losing the lightheaded feeling she’d been swimming through, but it had to happen eventually. She’d have to play truth or dare again with Mr. Disembodied Voice.

 

Only when her eyes carefully slit open she was met with overwhelming darkness. The lamp that had done nothing but bore into her retinas was shut off, which she was glad for, but it wasn’t  _ supposed _ to be off. It was a part of the game. It was hot, uncomfortable, supposed to make her feel disoriented and like shit. The fact that it was off was… promising? God. Hope welled in her stomach despite her best protests, because of course it would. She knew they’d find her missing within the next eight hours after she was taken, if not because she’d literally been in the middle of talking to Steve then definitely because she had a meeting at 8AM sharp that Pepper would kill her if she missed. Besides that, she had elevated herself into a global position that was way too important for her to just go missing unnoticed like the olden days. Toni Stark was the face of reformation, the cornerstone to amending the Accords and setting the world straight again. So of course someone would come for her. 

 

She still felt basically like the human equivalent of jello, but that’s the thing about hope. It did something to a person. Gave ‘em that little push they didn’t think they had anymore. Her limbs still felt like she was wearing the Iron Man suit with no power on, but she could move them again. She tugged curiously against the restraints, but they were firm and had very little leeway for her to move. Her fingers fumbled back to try to touch the chain keeping her against the table but found it just out of her reach. 

 

Toni let out a frustrated groan as she let her head lay back against the table again. She wasn’t a super soldier. She couldn’t just give a hard tug and break the chains. She needed to be able to reach them to break herself out, but her captors knew better than to give her even an inch of movement apparently. She was effectively tied down. There was no way she could break these bonds. 

 

She felt the hope dying off in her stomach like bad milk, curdling and leaving a foul taste in her mouth. Maybe her captor had actually just turned the lamp off. Conserve energy. Or her eyesight. Or something. She didn’t know. Maybe it was to fuck with her more? It was frustrating. So stupidly fucking frustrating. 

 

A sudden click and light flooded into her face again, causing her to wince and throw her head to the side, her eyes clenched shut. It was  _ painful _ . She’d figured it would come back on, but not that quickly. Why couldn’t these guys just beat the shit out of her? At least then she’d have something to do other than lay around helplessly on the table. She was used to having the shit kicked out of her. It was easy. This? This was something else entirely. She didn’t like it. Toni wasn’t quite sure if she preferred this to waterboarding, but just the thought of that sent her mind spiraling toward a darker place than it had been before. That nightmare would never leave her.

 

“-oni?” 

 

“-an you hear us?” 

 

“-ove the light out of her face!”

 

“Toni!”

 

The panic that had began crawling its way through her chest died off as the heat on her face disappeared, leaving behind a moment of coolness before she felt heat there again. On her cheeks. Moving her head. Rubbing circles into her skin? Brushing through her hair?

  
That wasn’t an over large lamp that kind of heat. 

 

It took what felt like an entire act of congress for her to wrench her eyes open again, even just a tiny bit to try and see what was going on. A part of her figured it to be a trap. That they were trying to Stockholm her like she’d originally thought. But… 

 

No. Those baby blues only belonged to one person.

 

“S’eve?” she slurred out, the heaviness of her tongue catching her by surprise. She swallowed heavily as she felt more hands around her wrists, then her ankles, the awkward chafing leather dropping away as the new hands worked. 

 

“Yeah, Toni. It’s me. You with us now?” 

 

_ Steve _ . Of course it was Steve. Steve fucking Rogers would be the guy to show up and get her out of this mess. The one guy they’d been asking her about. The guy they’d wanted to find. The guy that… 

 

“Trap,” she gasped out, jerking up so suddenly that it threw her off balance and into the sturdy chest beside her. His hands had dropped to her shoulders to steady her, and she did her damndest to brush them off to get off the table. “They wanted  _ you _ . Not me. I was just bait.” The realization felt like a thousand boulders had just fallen onto her, looking up into the face of the man who had left her behind in Siberia just a few months ago. He would always come for her. The entire  _ world _ knew that when it came down to it, Captain America and Iron Man would always do anything for each other. Winghead and Shellhead, two sides of the same all-American coin. 

 

The longer she stared at him the more she realized how much time had passed since that god awful day in Siberia. God, he looked different. More gruff. He had even grown out a beard. But he was staring at her earnestly, and she knew whatever she had to say he’d believe it. Because that was how they did this. It wasn’t personal right now, in the middle of a situation. It was all professional right now, it was all work, and they could manage that without looking like kicked puppies. “Injected me with this truth serum shit, kept asking where you were. Didn’t tell them anything.” 

 

“I know. You would never do that.” His voice had  _ no right _ to sound so calm, but at the same time it did. It was his Captain voice. His  _ we are in some shit right now and I need to find a way to get us out of it _ voice. “You need to calm down, Toni. You’re hurt.” 

 

“Hardly the time for a nap, Cap,” she quipped, her eyes lingering on his with one brow raised. “Or was that the whole plan when you broke in here? Did you at least bring milk and cookies?” 

 

The result was a smile and a huff, which was exactly what she wanted. Her own smile grew in turn, and despite the obvious wall of ice between them it felt like something had at least defrosted a little. Just enough that this felt real. Her motormouth during missions and his fake exasperation at it was so normal, so  _ them _ , that it grounded her more than anything else could. 

 

“Hate to break up the moment,” another voice popped in, and Toni’s attention swiveled quickly to the owner of it. It pulled uncomfortably at the collar still around her throat, but it was worth it. It was Natasha. A blonde Natasha. “But we need to move. They’ll realize what’s happened soon.” 

 

“You’re  _ blonde _ ,” was all Toni managed to say, which only earned her the smallest of eyerolls. She’d take it. “You guys leave the states for four months and you go  _ blonde _ , and you,” she turned pointedly back to Steve, “grew a  _ beard _ . I didn’t realize leaving civilization was going to be that rough on you.” 

 

“Well, at least we can rest assured your brain is still intact,” Natasha bit off, but it didn’t hold any venom. It was as close to banter as she could get in the situation. “How does that thing come off?”

 

Toni grimaced as the elephant in the room was finally brought up, bringing her very shaky arms up to prod at the collar around her neck. It was metal, about two inches thick, three inches wide, and probably looked gaudy as hell. “Without seeing it I can’t say for certain. But we should probably get it off before they start shocking me again. Does it have a hinge or a crease or something?” 

 

She’d expected Natasha to do the probing, but instead Steve’s fingers moved to her neck and felt around the device. It was… not unpleasant, precisely, but it put her on edge more than it would’ve a year ago. Before Siberia. 

 

“I don’t feel anything,” he finally spoke, but it was terse and she knew he had to have felt the same thing she had. It was  _ awkward _ . “But I can try to pull it apart anyway.” 

 

She couldn’t find the words to agree, so she just nodded. It had to be done before they could get out of here. She had no idea what all this thing was capable of. 

 

His fingers carefully slid in between the metal and her skin on either side of her neck, and she did her best to suppress a wince. It  _ hurt _ . The skin was raw and burnt and probably needed some Helen Cho certified therapy to not be scarred from this. His barely whispered sorry was almost lost on her as he finally got a good grip on it, and before she could even register what was about to happen he tugged and she heard the metal snap apart.

 

Toni cried out as the metal pulled away from her flesh, lurching forward as her body reacted primally to the pain. It was fucking awful. Way worse than she’d expected. 

 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Toni,” she heard murmured above her, and she realized she’d fallen forward into the broad expanse of Steve’s chest. He’d dropped the broken collar and had wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her in place as she heaved in deep, shaky breaths to try to regain some semblance of the composure she’d had. It was difficult. 

 

“C’mon, Steve. We’ve gotta go. We’re already running behind schedule.” 

 

Nat’s voice sounded just as pleasantly calm and calculated as always, but Toni was having issues focusing on it too much. She was still reeling from the pain of her skin ripping off the goddamned collar to really care about anything else. 

 

“...-acktrack the way we came, maybe there are less guards-...” 

  
“...-no. We need a new route or we’ll--...” 

 

“... -an’t just leave her here, Nat--...”

 

“...-aybe she was right and it’s a trap…” 

 

Toni groaned again as she fluttered back to consciousness, the morbid part of her wondering when she had even closed her eyes. Somewhere between the collar ripping and the warm hands rubbing circles in her shoulder blades probably. “M’always right,” she managed to slur out, and she felt the response to her words as whoever was holding her stopped moving. That was probably a good thing. She felt pretty sick now. 

 

“Hey, Toni, with us again?” 

 

Steve. Of course he was carrying her around this place. His voice rumbled throughout his chest, and she tried to nod her head obligingly to his words but stopped short. That hurt way too much. “Mhm,” she hummed instead, opening her eyes to peer up at the face she knew was lingering just above hers. And yep. There he was. In all his bearded glory. “St’ll mad a’you.” 

 

He laughed. He actually fucking laughed at her, the bastard. She could feel the shake of his chest against her side. “I know you are,” he replied earnestly, and then his attention was on Natasha again, flickering around the rest of whatever room they were in. Toni honestly had no idea. 

 

She vaguely heard them talking again, but the lull of his warmth combined with the pleasant vibration of his voice in his chest was quickly pulling her back under. 

 

Gunshots were what got her right back out though. 

 

She was very suddenly awake at the first shot, ringing in her ears as her upper body jolted in response. Steve kept a tight hold of her as he ducked around a corner, Natasha following just behind as she returned fire at their attackers. How were they still here? How long had it been? She had so few of the variables, but they needed to be out of here yesterday. 

  
“I got an idea,” Toni spoke up, peering at Steve from her place in his arms imploringly. He had to still trust her ideas, right? Probably. “Fair warning, it’s a little stupid.” 

 

“We’ll take anything at this point, Toni,” Natasha spoke up before Steve could, her voice tight in all the ways it hadn’t been before she’d passed out. Apparently a lot more had gone on than she’d thought. Their plans must’ve fallen through. 

 

“Get me to a computer.” 

  
It was an easy mode to fall back into between them. Steve and Toni had always co-led the team, Natasha was their second if both or one of them were incapacitated. Rarely happened, but they worked so well together that it was just natural. Steve took off in the direction of a room they’d seen with computers in it a while back, carrying Toni who was, for now, basically a jellyfish in his arms. Natasha covered them, doing her kickass spy thing. 

 


End file.
